


And Away They Did Run

by gertie_flirty



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Moral Ambiguity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:24:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gertie_flirty/pseuds/gertie_flirty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben and Leslie go on a break. April kicks out Andy. Ben tries not to be Ross Geller; fails, succeeds, and makes a mess of his life. As usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Away They Did Run

**Author's Note:**

> Ambiguous infidelity warning. Only a kiss happens before all characters become single. Title from "Simple Song" by The Shins. Contains references to the American sitcom Friends.

 

_Whoops_ , Ben thinks as he leans down to kiss April. Like it was an accident. _Whoops._ Something you say when you open the wrong door. Something you say when you trip and fall.

 

Which wasn’t all that different from what he was doing right now.

 

“Why did you do that?” she asks him as he backs away.

 

“Why did I kiss you?” he says.

 

“No. Why did you stop?”

And she’s grabbing the front of his shirt, pulling him down again. Pulling him down into the kiss, pulling him down into her, pulling him down into what his future was about to become.

 

Whoops.

 

~*.~*.~*.

 

He and Leslie hadn’t made it. At least, he didn’t think they had made it. The trip to Washington had changed a lot of things. Leslie was busy, and he was busy, and they had been apart for so long that being together had become foreign and impossible. So they took a break. Not a break up, not a real one, but a break. Like Ross and Rachel on Friends. And they had ended up together.

 

But not until after Ross had slept with the girl from the copy shop. This is a thought that doesn’t cross Ben’s mind until the exact moment his lips touch April’s.

 

It’s a mistake, he thinks. It had all been a mistake, from the moment he got back. He moved back in with Andy and April instead of---what, moving in with Leslie? Had that really been his only other option? He could afford his own place by now. But he had gotten used to Andy and April. At least he had gotten used to April. Really just April. This scares the crap out of him.

 

April pushes him away. “What are you doing?”

 

“I—wha—I’m sorry---“

 

“You’re all distracted. Focus.”

 

“I—right. No,” he says. “No, we shouldn’t. It’s not right, April.”

 

She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even look at him. Her gaze is fixed on the floor of their kitchen. He can see her counting the tiles with tiny movements of her eyes. She had done this before in Washington. It’s how she organizes her thoughts when she doubts herself.

 

He can’t believe he knows this much about her.

 

“You’re right,” she says, and turns away. She doesn’t leave the room, but just stands in the same place, resting her hands on the counter.

 

He watches her hair fall in front of her shoulders as her head lowers. He stares at the tiny patch of skin on her neck left bare between her hairline and her sweater. He watches as her shoulders sink and her back curves and as she heaves a deep breath he’s not meant to see. He’s been looking at her for a long time, and it’s driving him crazy. She’s trying not to cry, but she had been trying not to cry before he kissed her. She had fought with Andy, and it had been serious, and she had come running to Ben.

 

Ben didn’t know what the fight was about and he hadn’t really cared. She had asked him a question, something about her marriage and whether it was worth it and Ben had just shrugged and leaned down and kissed her.

 

She still doesn’t move. Ben can’t handle looking at her back anymore, so he is the one to leave. He goes into his bedroom and shuts the door, then falls face first onto the bed. He thinks he is going to vomit.

 

He hates what he’s done. He’s convinced he is the worst human being on the planet. Batman would be ashamed. Would he though, really? Bruce Wayne was a pretty notorious playboy—

 

He is definitely going to throw up. He sits up and tries to force his nausea back down. April had been making him sick for longer than just today. Longer than since he and Leslie had started their break. In Washington, he and April had done nearly everything together. Taken the Metro to and from work together, every day. Ate nearly every single meal together. And spent at least eight hours of every day working together. He had been impressed with April’s ability to merge with the high stakes political scene—she had made as many friends and enemies in Washington as any sitting senator. Somehow, he had gotten to know everything about her. Too much.

 

Nothing had ever happened, not really. After all, she was married and he was with Leslie. It wouldn’t have been right. But there had been one time, where running through the rain they had almost missed their train. They ran down the escalator and threw themselves through the doors before they slammed shut. Soaking wet and exhausted, they collapsed into one of the hard plastic benches, gasping for breath. They had leaned into each other, their shoulders pressed firmly together, his head gently resting on top of hers. One of his hands reached up and grabbed onto the metal pole that reached from the floor to the ceiling of the train. It wasn’t until his knuckles were turning white that he finally inched away from April, his wet clothes impeding his progress.

 

It was a tiny moment, but it had been weird, and Ben didn’t deal with weird well. The last time things went weird in his life he had tried to make a claymation video and open a calzone restaurant. So he had shook it off and lived out the rest of the time in Washington just trying to deal with April’s mood swings and temper. Things had been okay.

 

Then he had come back to Pawnee, and things stopped being okay.

 

~*.~*.~*.

 

April and Ben try their best to avoid each other after the kiss. They eat at different times, leave for work at different times. Ben lies in his bed every morning making sure April has long departed the shower before he even attempts to go into the bathroom.

 

April and Andy fight every day. Ben tries to stay out of it, like a child of parents on the verge of divorce. Andy moves out. Mostly because April kicks him out, but he still leaves, and the house is much quieter, and much more dangerous. Ben and April still try to avoid each other.  Ben can’t stop himself from noticing her, though. He notices everything—how quickly her expression can change when she gets too many slices of pepperoni on her pizza, and the disgusted way she’ll pick a few off. He notices how she grabs her hair at the root with one hand and brushes it with the other. He notices how quickly she reads old adventure novels, yellowed and ragged, that she bought at the thrift store. He notices the way her legs look in a pair of shorts, all bony and bowlegged and curvy and smooth. And at night, he notices the soft sounds of her crying in her room, muffling herself with maybe a pillow or a blanket or even the palm of her own hand. Things can’t stay this way forever, with him noticing her and her ignoring him.

 

And they don’t.

 

He’s just trying to watch television. It’s a day he’s home before April is, and she throws herself onto the couch with a mumbled, “Hey.”

 

“Hey.”

 

“What is this?”

 

“Battlestar Galactica.”

 

“Star Trek or whatever?”

 

“No, not Star Trek—“ Ben stops himself. He knows April just wants to antagonize him. “It’s whatever.”

 

“Nice job on not taking the bait, Benji.”

 

He can’t help but smile, proud of himself. “Thank you.”

 

They’re both quiet while the sound of television roars on. When the episode ends, Ben leans down to grab the PS3 controller to skip to the next one, and he looks over at April. She’s leaning her head on one hand, her elbow on the arm of the couch. Her hand is pressed against her mouth, and she’s pulled her legs up against her chest. Her eyes aren’t on the television, and they aren’t on Ben, they aren’t on anything at all. It’s one of the saddest things Ben’s ever seen.

Instead, he sits up and presses a button on the controller and Battlestar springs back into life. After the opening, Ben takes a deep breath. Without ever taking his eyes off the tv, he slowly, slowly, slowly, stretches out one arm across the empty couch cushion between them. His fingers gently tug at her free hand, pulling it into his grasp. They don’t squeeze their hands together, but they do fit very well inside of each other. He lets his own hand rest on the couch cushion, holding hers firmly, feeling the rough fabric scrape the back of his hand and cause the most terrible itching sensation.  Her hand is small and warm and he can feel her pulse beating faintly through her soft skin.

 

Another episode finishes before they move again. And it’s a sudden movement—she’s right up next to him, she’s on top of him, and their faces are pushed together in a fierce, wet kiss. He wraps his arms completely around her, pulling her so close there’s barely any room for the clothes between them. A wave of heat surges through his body, and he throws her down onto the couch with unexpected force. With minimal fumbling they manage to get their clothes off—enough of their clothes, anyway.

 

He pushes into her, and it’s hard, and fast, and he can feel her blood boiling through her skin. She gasps out his name as they finish, and he finds himself more relieved than anything. He stays on top of her for a while until rolling over slightly to the side, his back against the back of the couch. Ben wants to kiss her again, he wants to kiss her a lot, but April slides his hand down between them and he’s ready to go again almost instantly. It’s as frantic as it was before, and they finish even quicker. This time, when they’re done, he tries to apologize.

 

“I’m sorry—“

 

April groans, cutting him off. “For what?”

 

“For—uh---“ he puts his hands up in the air. “For, um, I’m sorry.”

 

She rolls her eyes and sits up, and he sits up with her, awkwardly reaching for his pants.

 

“April, I—“

 

“Don’t. Just, don’t.” She doesn’t turn around to look at him, just simply slides her shirt back over her head. “Talking ruins everything.”

 

He decides to take this advice to heart.

 

~*.~*.~*.~*.

 

April is a lot younger than him. He remembers being in his twenties and feeling invincible and disgusted with the world at the same time. He remembers not being able to control his temper, or any of his feelings, very well. He remembers being horribly impatient for no reason at all. He sees all this in April when she mouths off to paper boy or how she’ll yell at the phone company about an overcharge. It makes Ben feel old, older than he felt already. This relationship is going to destroy him.

 

It can hardly be called a relationship. They don’t tell anyone. They don’t go on dates. They barely talk to each other. It’s mostly sex, lots of sex, in every room of the house. It’s another thing that makes him feel old, and he’s just so tired all the time.

 

After a few weeks, she starts leaning up against him when they’re watching television. He always concedes and puts his arm around her. She fits so well there he doesn’t mind sitting like that for hours, resting his chin lightly on top of her head. These are the moments where he feels they are warm and human, instead of two pieces of furniture placed at opposing angles in the same room. Cool distance separates them so often that the smaller moments of companionship seem to flare more brightly and briefly in comparison.

 

Winter is coming. April gets so tired of him saying that that she threatens to flush his Game of Thrones Blu-rays down the toilet.

 

“Do that and I’ll burn all of your Neutral Milk Hotel CDs.” He’s slowly learned how to play her game. They’re standing in the kitchen, and he leans on the counter resting his cup of cocoa.

 

“CDs? It’s 2012. No one has CDs anymore except weird old guys like you.”

 

“Then I’ll run a magnet across your hard drive and wipe out your MP3 files. That better?”

 

“I’d like to see you try,” she says.  With an easy movement, she sidles up to him. He puts his hand at the small of her back, letting his fingers draw small circles over the cloth of her sweatshirt.

 

“There are other things we could try instead,” Ben murmurs as he leans down to kiss her. She tastes bitter like coffee, not cocoa. Her fingers entwine in his hair, but she doesn’t pull it like she normally does. Nothing about this kiss feels _normal_ , except that it exudes normality. It’s intimate and soft, not desperate and hungry like what usually passes between them. This is a kiss shared by a couple, and this thought freaks him out.

He pushes her away with surprising force. Surprise is evident on her face, but her eyebrows narrow as she notices how goddamn scared he looks.          

 

“April—“

 

There’s a sharp knock at the door and Ben and April look at each other with wide eyes like children who have been caught eating cookies before dinner.  After the second knock comes Ben spins and stumbles, launching himself into the living room and to the front door.

 

It’s Leslie, and all those freaking cameras from the documentary crew that had mostly left him alone since the break-up. She looks the same as ever, a ball of light ready to bounce into his life and mess it all up again. She’s smiling but looks as scared as he does.

 

“Ben. Can I talk to you?”

 

“Yeah, sure, I—“ he casts a look back towards the kitchen, but there’s no sign of April. “Come on in.”

 

He opens the door a little bit wider and the whole crew enters. Leslie sits down on the couch, gesturing for him to sit with her. There’s so much tension in his spine that the couch cushion doesn’t even sink under his weight. He’s right on the edge, ready to flee. Some he knows that she knows—Leslie knows about him and April. In his head, he’s preparing his defense, ready to yell _We were on a break!_ and become Ross Geller for real.

 

“Soooooooo . . .” It’s dragged out way too long and he’s making tiny nervous movements with his hands. The tenor of his voice cracks. “What’s--- _eerkh_ \---what’s up?”

 

She looks up at him with wide, wet eyes. Her tiny pink tongue darts out and licks her lips. Sweat beads on Ben’s forehead.

 

“I want to get back together.”

 

Ben involuntarily flinches as she says this. Slowly he opens his eyes, and she launches into a spiel about how she was wrong, and how sorry she was and how she hoped she didn’t ruin everything.

 

His first instinct is to say, _Nope, sorry, I’m in love with April_. Vomit rises in the back of his throat. He’s not in love with April. It’s just passion, lust, an infatuation. That’s wrong, though. What about that kiss in the kitchen? The way she swayed her hips so gently and playfully. The feel of her clothes, not just the body underneath them. A play begins in his mind, disjointed scenes of he and April together. A flash of white teeth as she smiles at him over a coffee mug. Gently touching the back of her knee while she stands in front of him wearing a tiny pair of shorts. Spanish cursewords being hurled at him in a drunken fervor. April’s glasses sliding down her nose when she reads at night after taking her contacts out.

 

He’s definitely going to hurl. He waits for Leslie to pause to tell her the truth, to tell her everything.

 

“Well?”

 

She’s stopped. Now she’s looking up at him expectantly. _Here you go, Ben. Now’s the time._

 

Instead, he says, “I’ll think about it.”

 

~*.~*.~*.~*.

 

Nearly twenty minutes after Leslie leaves, Ben’s still sitting on the edge of the couch. Leslie had seemed hopeful, not disappointed. She always seemed hopeful. The problem was Ben never knew how to handle hope like that. He hadn’t wanted to say that. He had wanted to tell her about April and he had wanted to say they were on a break and that he wanted his t-shirt back and his fossils, but he didn’t have any fossils that was Ross Geller after all, and Ross and Rachel always got back together.

 

Finally, he exhales, and it feels like he’s been holding his breath the entire time. Not just the few minutes Leslie was here, but for the past few months. Slowly, he stands and walks to the kitchen. His cup of cocoa is cold, so he dumps it out in the sink.

 

“You’ll think about it?”

 

He jumps and spins around. April is sitting on the floor under the overhang of the kitchen counter. Her knees are pulled up to her chest with her arms crossed on top of them.

 

  
“April, I—“

 

“What does that mean, you’ll think about it?” She grabs the edge of the countertop and pulls herself up. “You want to get back together with Leslie?”

 

“I—I don’t know.”

 

“You don’t know?!”

 

“What do you want from me, April?” He starts yelling. “I came to Pawnee to fix the budget. I only stayed here for Leslie. I came back from D.C. for Leslie. If not for Leslie, than why the hell did I stay here?”

 

“I don’t know, why did you stay here?” April pushes past him out of the room and he hears the door to her bedroom slam a moment later.

 

Sixteen year old Ben would have given him a high five. Ben in his thirties feels like a douchebag. He had tried to force all thoughts of comparing these two women out of his head. Thinking about how old he is just makes him remember how young April is. She’s cool, and distant, and completely unpredictable. Leslie is warm and enthusiastic about everything. He can’t keep up with that, though. But good relationships always need balance. His cynicism and Leslie’s hopefulness. His experience and April’s youth. His interests in facts and figures and the here and now and Leslie’s every brightening outlook on the future. His fastidiousness and April’s free spirit. He hates this. He hates putting them against each other, even in his own mind. He’s a mess. His life is a mess. He’s old and his life is a mess.

 

Ben turns back to the sink and throws up everything in his stomach.

 

~*.~*.~*.~*.

 

A year later, Ben gets married. He says the right name at the altar, and thinks maybe he’s not like Ross Geller after all. 


End file.
